US Patent 9881788 Back side deposition apparatus and applications

The embodiments disclosed herein pertain to methods and apparatus for depositing stress compensating layers and sacrificial layers on either the front side or back side of a substrate. In various implementations, back side deposition occurs while the wafer is in a normal front side up orientation. The front/back side deposition may be performed to reduce stress introduced through deposition on the front side of the wafer. The back side deposition may also be performed to minimize back side particle-related problems that occur during post-deposition processing such as photolithography.